大象传媒

Good morning.聽 I sometimes wonder how many people actually persevere with those magazines that seem to come out like a rash at the beginning of the year;聽 the ones that encourage you to buy one a month so you can build a model of the Titanic or a fully functioning skeleton of Tyrannosaurus Rex.聽 They seem to disappear from the advertising circuit pretty quickly.聽 I've never been tempted.

But there are other collections:聽 those football cards to swap with friends, only they only ever want two out of what seems like the hundreds you have amassed with your hard earned pocket money.聽 And some of us just like to collect things.聽 It鈥檚 great when we find we have 'the complete set' raiding all those vintage and antique shops.聽 Stories of discovery and questing have always gripped the imagination, whether it's knights searching for the holy grail or detectives looking for the clue that will prove whodunit.聽 The bible has its own:聽 a merchant searching for a pearl, a woman searching for a lost coin.

I recently found among some family archives a china figure in 18th century dress.聽 I asked my knowledgeable friend if it was valuable.聽 Here was a little figure playing a flute in a yellow frock coat, white breeches and wig.聽 'No,' he said, 'it's not worth anything.聽 It's one of a group of eleven.聽 Unless you've got the set,' he said, it's of little value.'聽 We didn鈥檛 find any others.聽 He told me how when such a set was in the family, when the owner died, the figures would be split between family members as a keepsake. It became a symbol connecting people across time and distance, players in a miniature porcelain orchestra.聽 The figure now represented relationship not collection. Maybe that was more precious than a complete set in a display cabinet.

So pray today for families separated for whatever reason, that each may know they are valuable to each other and precious to God.聽 Amen